Well, Class is Over. I can see a summer of animating past the tassel of my graduation cap

So senior studio has come to an end and graduation is only a few days away. For an evening, I'll be trading out a pencil for a diploma. Even though the class is over, I plan on picking back up on production after a little vacation.I'm really going to miss those long hours in the studio with my classmates working an cracking jokes. It's been something golden.

Updated Work Reel for End of March

It's been far too long since the last work reel post. There is still a lot of things not in the reel yet like cleaned and colored animations. I'm still looking for folks who can help me with that. There's a lot to color and the more help I get the faster the film gets done. There is still a little more than 30 days left to work on the film before the deadline so it's back to the animation table for me!

Work Reel with Colored Backgrounds and 'Little Bang Theory' Music!

The clock is counting down and there is much to do. So let's get crackin'!

Also present in my current real is the musical stylings of 'Little Bang Theory' who specialize in composing and playing songs on toys and childrens instruments. For my film they gave me premission to use "Garden Party", "Dada boy Overture", and "Toy Suite #3" in that order from their 'Elementary' CD. The three members of Little Bang Theory are Frank Pahl, Terri Sarris, and Doug Shimmin.

Animatic Update, New Story Boards and Layouts

I spent the weekend tweaking my animatic to death. I had some layouts done so I thought I'd throw those in there too. You may have notice that the climax of the film has changed a bit. After some discussion with my mentor, I decided that giving her the choice to join the circus and then forcing her to join anyways was kind of pointless. So in this version, there is no choice. The witch shows her the contract and then works her evil magic. I was also happy to key out a few of the shots. With every update, I feel a lot better about my film.

Yet Another Animatic Revision

I seem to be doing this a lot. Hopefully this is the last one and I won't have to make a lot of serious changes to it anymore. I'm sorry to everyone but this one doesn't have any sound.

New panel from the updated Story boards

Revised Animatic: Hold the sugar.

If you recall, my last animatic was more than 5 minutes long. Well, I guess that my advisors said that it was too long and I had to shorten it. Dark Circus had to be put on a diet. In the business of filmmaking, extra things added to the film to make it look more "spiffy" are called sweetening and Dark Circus has a lot of it. Sadly, I had to cut a lot of it out to make my film shorter and I had to re-story board some parts. If I have the time I will add some sweetening back in but the important thing is finishing the film.

First Animatic!

It looks like I've got quite the film to take on. Almost six minutes. But I think I can do it. A few more camera tweaks to make and some adjustments with the story. I'm hoping to have some more character and concept art up here soon.

As for the music, the songs used in order are A `Quai by Yann Tieren, Dark Eyes by Zolton and his Gypsy Ensemble, and Claire de Lune by Claude Debussy. I don't plan on using these specific songs for the film (even though I've pretty fallen in love with the first one ^_^) but they have the feel I'm going for. Though I wish the middle one was more "circus-y". I was originally looking for all piano but I'm really feeling good about the accordion now. I might I have to learn how to make music digitally because I'm pretty limited to my musical instruments. I can do drums or piano but no accordion or violin.

I'm excited to start this film. The goal is to have layouts, backgrounds, and all concept art tackled before the next school year starts. I'll have to balance it with finishing my other film, Enviosity, all my summer commission jobs, and all the things to do at home. But it's better that I start this sooner rather than later.